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You are invited to a special performance of Restoration's programme of baroque music, entitled Grace & Splendour: the French and Italian world of JS Bach.

This programme includes two of Bach's best-loved works: the French-style Overture-Suite in D major, and the Italian-style Violin Concerto in A minor, played by their superb guest violinist visiting from Australia, Lucinda Moon.

Lucinda Moon was born in NZ, the daughter of NZ Opera founder Donald Munro and Jean McCartney, principal viola of the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra. Lucinda returned from training in Europe to become concertmaster for many years of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and is now in demand as a member and leader of several baroque ensembles in Australia.

Also on the programme are works by Rameau and Vivaldi, providing a further context of French grace and Italian splendour, as well as a fascinating suite by Georg Muffat, who combined the two dominant national styles in his native Germany, in much the same way Bach did a few years later. ‘Grace and splendour’ is a phrase Muffat used in the performing instructions he published as an introduction to his suites.

Restoration uses original baroque instruments, and the styles and techniques of the time, to recreate 17th and 18th-century music as closely as possible to the way it was originally composed and heard. This is not for mere historical accuracy, but because they believe it allows the music to speak to us across the centuries with its most powerful and expressive voice. The past is indeed a foreign country — its language, manners and culture are very different from those of our own era, where we are harried on all sides by excessive speed and noise and a relentless demand for self-expression. All of this seeps unawares even into the way baroque music is usually heard in New Zealand in the 21st century. But there is another, more radical approach, drawing instead on the broader cultural context and the aesthetic principles dominating society in the baroque era. By focusing on the majesty and noble demeanour of this music, designed for the rituals and entertainments at the courts of patrons and rulers, Restoration goes to the heart of its original style and sound world.